State bill aims to get land where ATVs can ride

For riders of all-terrain vehicles, a ticket for riding illegally “is just the price of doing business,” Chris Butler said.

ALISON SHEA

For riders of all-terrain vehicles, a ticket for riding illegally “is just the price of doing business,” Chris Butler said.

The Niantic man said he never really liked racing much, but started entering ATV races just to get some legal riding time.

The only public land where some all-terrain vehicles — namely, dirt bikes — are allowed is a 60-mile off-road trail through the Pachaug State Forest, and even those bikes must be street-legal. There is no public land for riders of four-wheeled ATVs, or quads, to ride.

A bill before the state Legislature aims to change that. State Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Griswold, and Sen. Andrew Maynard, D-Stonington, propose increasing registration fees for ATVs with some of the money set aside to purchase land for ATV use.

The Department of Motor Vehicles now lists registration fees of $35, including $20 for the registration, a $5 plate fee and $10 Clean Air Act fee.

The bill, which is before the Legislature’s joint committee on the environment, doesn’t include an amount for the increase — that would be discussed if the bill makes it to a public hearing. In the bill, 60 percent of the increase would go to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to create an ATV enforcement and trail maintenance division. Forty percent of the increase would go to the state’s General Fund to offset deficits; if there is no deficit at the end of the fiscal year, the money would go to the ATV unit. In addition, a $5 land purchase fee would be added to each registration, with money being set aside for ATV land purchases.

Mikutel said Wednesday that as many as 30,000 ATVs are in the state, most of them not registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles. ATV regulations only require registration when the vehicle will be ridden off of the owner’s property.

Mikutel said more people would register if there were places besides their own properties where they could ride legally.

“They take their vehicles out of state, they ride out of state and their money goes there — to a weekend in Vermont or Maine. That’s money lost to Connecticut in terms of sales tax, rentals, hotels. Why not keep them in Connecticut and give them a place to ride here?”

As much as he likes the idea of registration fees going back to riders in the form of land to ride on, Rob Howard, a North Franklin dirt bike and motocross enthusiast and president of the Central Cycling Club, based in Central Village, said he’s skeptical that the money will be used for its intended purpose. That was the intention when registration fees were first introduced, he said.

“As far as we’re concerned, they should have already done that with the registration fees they’re collecting,” Howard said.

Eric “Vern” Anthony, of Montville, manager of MotorSports Nation in Plainfield, one of the largest ATV dealers in the state, said he supports the bill. The lack of places to ride “is a big thing for our customers,” he said.
Anthony said ATV rides can be a fun, wholesome family activity, one that teaches children safety and responsibility. But as long as nearly all public space is off-limits, he said, “they’re teaching kids the wrong thing because they’re doing it illegally.”

Because most of their riding in-state runs afoul of the law, ATV riders said they police each other rather than calling authorities when they see other riders putting themselves or others in danger.

“Ninety-nine percent of riders are responsible. It’s 1 percent that are giving us a bad name,” Anthony said.

Howard hopes that public riding areas will make the sport safer.

“We have no place to ride, and that’s where you get in trouble. You have ATVs riding in places where they shouldn’t and it reflects badly on the ATV community,” he said. “If we had a place to go, we could enforce rules about safety there.”

The lack of public ATV riding land comes up frequently in the Legislature, according to Tom Tyler, director of state parks for the DEEP. Concerns about safety comes up alongside concerns about damage to state parks and forestland each time, he said.

“The idea of a fee to create a division, that’s a new wrinkle,” he said. As for the land purchase surcharge, “I’ve never seen it before, but it makes all the sense in the world for folks who are looking for that to pool some money to acquire land specifically for ATVs.”